This cash assistance program provided what advocates call a “bridge to stability” for 11,095 Pennsylvanians in May – that includes nearly 700 people living in Cumberland, Dauphin, Perry, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties – who need some temporary help, according to the state Department of Human Services.

Attached to the cash assistance program’s proposed elimination in the bill is funding for some critical medical-related programs that will put Gov. Tom Wolf in a tough spot in deciding the bill’s fate.

“Governor Wolf consistently advocated for fully funding general assistance, including in his February proposal and various counter-proposals during the budget negotiations. Republicans prioritized eliminating this program. Governor Wolf fought to keep the program intact,” said Wolf spokesman J.J. Abbott.

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre County, said he was “pretty confident the governor will – or at least hopeful – either sign it or let it become law” without a signature.

Abbott said the governor would evaluate it once it reaches his desk.

Those who favor ending the program say other state-funded and community programs exist to help individuals who receive this cash assistance, who are mostly childless men with a temporary or permanent disability waiting for the Social Security Administration to rule on their application for disability benefits.

On Monday, the Senate Health & Human Services Committee shot down eight Democratic amendments that attempted to salvage the program in some form or fashion before approving it by a 7-4 party-line vote. Democrats sought to preserve the program for domestic violence and human trafficking victims, those seeking treatment with substance abuse disorders, individuals with disabilities including veterans, and their caregivers.

When those proposals were rejected, Sens. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery County, and Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, unsuccessfully tried to delay the program’s end for five years and to create a new emergency relief program.

Democrats later held a news conference where they referred to the bill as an “unconscionable piece of legislation" and part of a coordinated effort to keep Pennsylvanians in poverty. They brought in a beneficiary of the program to help make their case by putting a face to it.

John Boyd from southwest Philadelphia shared that he was homeless for 25 years and attributed being alive today to this program.

“I lived in shelters. I went from church to church, soup line to soup line, and it was no way to live. Somedays, I never eat and slept on benches," he said. “It was rough.”

But the $205 he received helps him pay for an apartment and utilities, quarters to do his laundry, to buy personal hygiene items, and bus fare to go to where he is working on getting his GED and medical appointments.

“The $205 a month is a lifesaver,” he said.

Sen. Art Haywood, D-Philadelphia, called the program’s proposed elimination, along with GOP resistance to raising the minimum wage and desire to impose work requirements on medical assistance recipients, part of an effort to keep Pennsylvanians in poverty that will lead to more crime.

Street said the $200 to $300 a month that cash assistance recipients receive, on average, for a nine-month period until their lives are stabilized costs far less than the $42,000 a year it costs to house an inmate in state prison.

“It is economically inefficient to do what we’re doing. It is a miscarriage of taxpayer’s money,” he said. “It is morally wrong. It is economically wrong. And the price that we pay by doing this is the price of cruelty because people wanting to be cruel so they can make a political statement to deny assistance to people at their most vulnerable state are in fact going to cost the taxpayers money.”

The cash assistance program cost the commonwealth about $15 million this year, said Rep. George Dunbar, R-Westmoreland County, who is sponsoring the bill that passed the House last week on a near party-line 106-95 vote. But he said it’s only a matter of time as word spreads about this benefit until it reaches $150 million, which is what it was costing the state when it was initially repealed in 2012.

The General Assembly decided to end the program that year after a report came out from the Auditor General’s office suggesting the food stamp and cash assistance programs were riddled with fraud and abuse to the tune of as much as $600 million a year. Wolf reinstated it late last year without consulting lawmakers after the state Supreme Court overturned the repeal law on the grounds that the Legislature violated the legislative procedures spelled out in the constitution.

Dunbar said in the seven years while the law was being challenged in court, no one introduced legislation to try to reinstate it. He said that was a key reason why he questions whether this is a wise investment of taxpayers’ money, particularly given its lack of accountability.

Haywood asked whether making it a receipt-based program would make a difference. Dunbar suggested that conversation should have occurred before the governor reinstated the program “and maybe things could have been done to make it more accountable.”

Besides that, Dunbar said the bill includes assistance through medical programs for some of the same individuals who receive cash assistance. “These are the type of programs we can fund if we’re not funding general assistance,” he said. “This is about choice.”

But Muth said ending this program could place people’s lives are on the line. “It’s troubling to see how decisions are made because I would like to think those are the people that we prioritize.”

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